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The reading by Carl Smith discusses how the Chicago fire was in a sense a way that the society was rejuvenated from their wrongful doings. The two major factors that were affected by the fires were the way religion was and how it affected the different social classes. The Protestants and people from the middle class saw the fires as God’s punishment to Chicago’a wrongdoings and that the fire clean the city out from the people’s sins. A lot of people in Chicago saw the fires as a good thing because they believed that it was a religious disaster. Smith makes a note that,”The effort to interpret the fire as an act of purification was derived from a longstanding concern— especially on the part of the “old settler” generation that had arrived around the time of the city’s incorporation in 1837…” (Smith, 131). As my peer Matthew said,People of all ages and sexes took part in criminal practices such as looting abandoned buildings, some even resorted to murder.The fires could be seen as bad because the prisoners were let out because it was seen immorally wrong to leave them in the jail cells to burn. The fires were very significant for the people of Chicago because they saw it as a way of erasing the past and making a better future for them economically and socially.
The aid that the city of Chicago was receiving symbolized that every one across the nation was feeling their sorrow and gave them goods and services that would benefit all of their population. Smith uses primary sources as a way to demonstrate vivid descriptions of how the fires affected all people of different social classes. His use of personal narratives including songs and newspaper articles provide details about the people who witnessed the fires first-hand.